Damien Frost and The Gossip reviewed.

DAEMIEN FROST
Spirito Di Daemo
Learn To Love
***

Bonus marks galore for Dublin four-piece Daemien Frost for the intricately detailed packaging which accompanies this bumper release. What's inside the beautifully hand-printed Matthew Bolger-designed cover art isn't too shabby either. One disc contains a re-upholstered version of the band's debut album, Corpus Daemo, complete with a couple of additional taut, sharp and ever-so-slightly wiggy tracks. The other disc is an action-packed DVD with promo videos, live footage and the Living on the Ledge story-of-the-band. While the latter contains much in-jokery and meanders into the mundane, the live footage and videos directed by such small-screen powerhouses as Delicious 9 give a much broader and more realised sense of the band's work and pitch. There's also some video footage of Giraffe Running, band members Hag and Greg Barret's other project.

www.daemienfrost.com

JIM CARROLL

THE GOSSIP
Live in Liverpool
Columbia
***

How soon the Next Big Thing shrinks. Two years ago, The Gossip and their lead singer Beth Ditto (below) were the talk and toast of every town, feted by Kate Moss and praised to the heavens. These days, the band have been removed from centre to side stage.

Presumably, this DVD (also in CD format), recorded at Liverpool's Carling Academy last year, is a stop-gap to the slide down the ladder.

Whatever you think about Ditto's plus-size features, there's no doubting that she's a rough-and-tumble rock star type, bawling it out with the best of them and sweating more than Christy Moore in a sauna.

In a live setting, the band are pretty much what you'd expect: raucous, ballsy and not in the mood for pussyfooting.

www.gossipyouth.com

TONY CLAYTON-LEA